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Actually if you go just outside the Tri-Cities area, more twords NC boarder, you have Johnson County and Roan Mountain. They are in the mountains, but they do get more snow and it stays on the ground longer. If we get an inch down here in the valley/foothills, they have 4 to 5 inches and ours melts that day or by the next, they still have it and might get more overnight.

I would hazard a guess that Tri-Cities is your place if you are looking for snow. But then, Tennessee is not known as a snowy winter kind of place overall.

We do get our fair share of ice storms, though!

Nashville gets more snow than Cookeville? I find that incredibly hard to believe. And Memphis gets more than Chattanooga? And where are these 11.4" that Knoxville is supposed to get? In the four years I've lived here I don't think we've ever had more than 2-3" in one year.

I heard a while back that Atlanta gets more snow than Chattanooga. Because Chattanooga is in a valley, the mountains help "steer" weather around the city, instead of coming right through with percipitation.

I heard a while back that Atlanta gets more snow than Chattanooga. Because Chattanooga is in a valley, the mountains help "steer" weather around the city, instead of coming right through with percipitation.

That makes sense, and that's precisely the reason the weather people on TV say that Knoxville doesn't get much snow; we're in a valley. Knoxville is actually at a lower altitude than Cookeville, for example. There is absolutely no way that Knoxville's average is 11.4" per year.

There is absolutely no way that Knoxville's average is 11.4" per year.

I went and looked up the NOAA statistics on these snowfall numbers... The first number is the number of years averaged, followed by a number for each month of the year, with the last number being the yearly average:

I went and looked up the NOAA statistics on these snowfall numbers... The first number is the number of years averaged, followed by a number for each month of the year, with the last number being the yearly average:

...so that 11.5" average comes from 58 years of averaging. Pretty accurate, I'd say.

Oh I'm not doubting the statistic necessarily, I just still can't believe it (I guess I'm contradicting myself). In the 31 years my family has lived in Tennessee, I only remember a handful of winters where we got a foot of snow which is what the Knoxville average is supposed to be. I guess what's throwing me off is that when it does snow here, it rarely stays on the ground very long; after a couple of days it's melted.

So to say that Knoxville gets an average of 11.5 inches of snow a year is kind of misleading in that the snow may be on the ground for a total of only about 6 days for the entire winter.

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